


Whispers

by dontloseyourfightkid



Category: All Time Low (Band)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-04
Updated: 2018-09-10
Packaged: 2019-07-06 16:51:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15890118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dontloseyourfightkid/pseuds/dontloseyourfightkid
Summary: Alex Gaskarth’s soul is dying.Jack Barakat’s is already gone but his spirit lives on.It becomes tied to Alex.Alex begins to slip away but Jack won’t give up that easily. After a night with a ouija board, Alex can finally see him. They quickly become friends and spend every moment together.But Jack had some demons to fight. They’re bigger, they’re badder, they’re Alex’s.





	1. Prologue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Ashley that is mentioned is not Ashley Osborn or Halsey.

Jack Barakat died on July 8th 2005. He was 17 and had been dreaming about finding love.

A man and his friends had come into his house and strangled him in his sleep. It wasn't the most peaceful of ways to pass, but it was a better treatment than what his family had.

May's throat had been slit; she was the first to go.

Jack was the second.

Joe's head had a bullet put through it. He was third.

Ashley was the fourth. She had been raped and choked to death by her own bedsheets. The man in the group wasn't meant to sexually assault her in any way, but he did it.

Their parents were dragged out into the yard. There, the group of five men skinned them from head to toe and laid out their organs in alphabetical order on the green grass.

There was no particular reason why this had happened, why they were all killed. It was an unfortunate stroke of luck that the madmen had chose the Barakat house.

The Gaskarths lived in Baltimore, Maryland close to where the Barakat's had been murdered. One of their sons, Alex, was the same age as Jack.

His spirit had been tied to him. Alex's tortured soul is interlocked with Jack's spirit, who wanders the planes of the Earth searching for a way out and for a way to save Alex.

Though the exit lies with Alex, neither of them are aware. They must find out the hard way.


	2. an•am•ne•sis

* * *

**/anamnesis/**

**noun**

**recollection, in particular.**

**the remembering of things from a supposed previous existence.**

————

Alex’s eyes were open. They were staring up at the cracked plaster of the ceiling as he lay in bed. His body had no will to move, nor did his mind.

Today was Sunday; moving day, though Alex would rather slowly kill himself than leave this place. It was where he grew up, where all his childhood memories were.

And that cat. That one white cat who never seemed to leave their property. It just skunk around between their plants and lay in the talk blades of grass.

It would follow him to school, which Alex found comforting at times. But when it hung around the window outside of his room, he would close the blinds and stay as far away from that side of the room as possible.

Alex sat up in bed. His legs were covered by only a thin blanket due to everything else having already been packed into boxes. His mattress was bare and directly on the floor. It only made him feel smaller.

Jack had woken up as well, rubbing his eyes. Since Alex’s mind had woken up so abruptly, he had no time to prepare himself.

But when he found that the boy was safe in his bed and attempting to wake himself up, he smiled. At least he was safe.

Alex stood up and stretched, his body replying with pops and cracks. Jack did the same, but without the same satisfying result.

“Good morning, Alex,” Jack greeted him with a small smile. Alex simply picked up his last outfit that wasn’t packed and began changing.

Alex couldn’t see him. It broke Jack’s heart in so many ways that he couldn’t talk to the boy. He desperately wanted to have conversations with him, and hug him when he was sad.

With a sigh, Alex slipped on his plain white t-shirt that was two sizes too big for him. He loved the feeling of it billowing out around him in the Baltimore air.

Jack followed him out to the kitchen, where the rest of the Gaskarth family had just woken up as well. His mother was on the phone with the movers and his father was quietly drinking his chai tea at the table.

Isobel had taken the last toaster waffle, much to Tom’s dismay, who had to eat Raisin Bran.

Jess, however, was fine with her single apple with peanut butter. Sarah had done the nice thing and saved Alex a bowl of cereal.

She slid it across the counter where she stood and said, “Eat up, we gotta leave soon.”

Alex took the bowl and filled it up with milk in silence. Sarah gave him a spoon and everyone grew quiet at the sudden arrival of their brother and son. They all knew of his ‘situation’ and were very wary of what they said and did around him. They thought anything could set him off in a negative way.

The empty house had only grown more so with the lack of talk. Alex liked it, but it was uncomfortable to the others. Tom and Jess picked up their food and left to go eat in the living room.

Jack took a seat on the floor and crossed his legs, his palms spread out over his kneecaps. He was looking up at Alex, his eyes full of wonder.

To him, the boy was intriguing. His feature may have seemed plain but it was quite the opposite. Jack loves how he looked. Sure, he could bear to eat a little more but he was healthy.

“Alex, can you bring your mattress down to the front? The truck’s going to be here soon.” His mother said, flipping her phone closed.

Alex’s eyes instantly flew over to the archway that led into the living room, where he could see his brother’s and sister’s mattresses all stacked on top of each other.

“Yeah, I’ll do that.” Alex replied.

He dug the spoon into the cereal and resumed eating.

 

————

 

“Come on, you...”

Jack watched as Alex struggled with dragging the mattress out into the living room. He was leaning against the bare wall with his arms crossed over his chest.

“Maybe try lifting with your legs, not you back.” Jack suggested.

Alex continued to shove it through the doorway with his back arched over. He was sweating through his shirt and it beaded along his hairline.

“Need some help, Lex?” Tom asked as he walked in, surprising both Jack and Alex.

“No, I’m fine,” he grumbled in response.

“Those pit stains say otherwise.” He wiggled a finger at the growing grey on his older brother’s shirt.

“Stop being a smartass and leave me alone.” Alex shot back.

As if in defense, Tom’s hands went up in the air, palms to Alex. “Alright, I’m going,” he said. “But you should hurry up. The truck’s already here and we need your mattress for the last Tetris piece.”

Alex could only give Tom a glare as he backed off and out of the hallway that was blocked by the mattress on the other side.

As Alex continued struggling, Jack kept watching. If he could talk to him, or even touch him, he’d either scream at him for not lifting right or push his ads with his foot so he fell down and realised how weak he was right now that he was putting all his weight into his back.

“You can be so stupid sometimes,” Jack muttered to himself. He scratched his right temple, sniffing as well. “It makes me worry for your well-being. How are you going to move out?”

Alex grunted in a faux response. He had somehow flipped the mattress on its back and was now trying to get it upright. He knew he should have taken his brother’s offer to help. He was stupid for even thinking that he could handle this on his own.

Yet another obstacle he couldn’t hurdle.

“I wish I could help you, Alex. I mean, not just with this, but... you know. Everything.” Jack used his body weight as a force to push himself off of the wall. He stepped out of the way of Alex’s and the warpath him and his mattress was on.

“You need a break, buddy.” I’m not talking about this, but mentally. I’m intertwined with you, I can see your mind. It’s going to spin off the rails in no time.”

There was a pause.

“I’m worried.”

 

————

 

The truck was stacked high with boxes and bags, and at last, Alex’s mattress. Everyone with an actual body and major organs stuffed themselves into the family car while Jack curled up in the back with Isobel’s travel bag in his lap. If he had a spin, it would be broken by now.

He could see out of the window. In the grass, with its tail wrapped around the post of the “For Sale” realty sign that had been hammered into the soft earth with s rubber mallet only hours before.

Jack chuckled to himself. The cat, which he had named Lillian, was his link to the mortal world. Every ghost who was tethered to a soul has one, whether it be a cat, a bird or a worm. Jack lucked out and was given Lillian; a beautiful, snow-white cat with cold yet caring eyes.

Jack hoped she would somehow find them at the new house. He couldn’t very well pick her up and take her with them, but maybe she could teleport or something.

He snickered at the thought, like she was a magic cat, like she was Minerva Mcgonagall.

“Everyone ready? Nothing’s left, right?” Isobel asked from the passenger seat.

A chorus of, “Yeah’s” rang out in the car, even one from Jack.

“Even though it’s a 43 minutes drive, I don’t feel like wasting gas. Are you _sure_?” Peter added.

“Yes, dad, we’re sure.” The Gaskarth children replied in unison.

“Good. Then let’s say goodbye to this house and hello to Lawnside Road.”

_Lawnside Road?_ Jack thought _. That’s where I lived... How could I not have been paying attention and realised that’s where they were moving?_

There were going to be memories, that’s for sure. Jack didn’t know if he could cope. They could quite possibly have no idea of what happened there only three months ago.

It’s October. And that would mean that all the demons of the past would make for some spectacular Halloween sightings.

The grass that more than likely hadn’t grown over where the blood pools and organs were there. The sweat and blood that soaked the sheets of their beds. The bits of brain that had been splayed out on his brother’s pillow. The tortured screams of his family swallowed by gags and hands.

Those memories would never fade.


	3. al•le•vi•ate

**/alleviate/**

**verb**

**make (suffering, deficiency, or a problem) less severe.**

 ————

“The attic, huh?” Jack mused as he trailed up the winding staircase behind Alex. “I could always see right into it from my bedroom. If I’m right there should be...”

Alex opened the door, the quiet screams of the loose hinges invading Alex’s unsuspecting ears. He winced at the ghastly sound.

As Jack stepped in, he saw what he had predicted. He chuckled in triumph. “Yup, a set of skis leaning the window sill. Look, they even have that 80’s squiggly design on them.” Jack ran over to them.

Alex set down the box of his most personal belongings on the floor, causing dust to fly up from underneath it. The floorboards creaked under his shoes and the sudden weight of the box.

They had moved into the tall, old house across the street from the Barakat’s. It was grey, much like the autumn sky above them.

Alex claimed the attic long before anyone else. That was before he knew there was a rouge draft from a small space beside the edge of the glass pane of the window. He unknowingly walked through Jack and moved the skis to the side. Jack reached out to catch them but it was in vain. They slid down the wall and crash landed on the floor. More dust.

Alex scrambled to stuff the sliver of a hole with the scarf he had been wearing, yet nothing happened.

“It’s not worth trying it, Alex. Have your dad patch it up later.” Jack said.

Ten minutes had passed and Alex officially gave up. He fell to his knees on the floor with the scarf in his hands.

Alex’s emotions had been kicked into high gear. He was on the verge of tears as he stared down at the chocolate coloured scarf. It was just another symbol of his failure at something so simple.

The tears came down his cheeks and were absorbed into the scarf. He couldn’t think straight now that the grief had washed over his mind and was gripping it like a vice. He just felt so... worthless.

“Alex...” said Jack softly. He crouched down next to him, eyes trained on the glistening tears. One stayed on the tip of Alex’s nose; a straggler. If only he was alive, he would brush it away and hug him.

“It’s okay, Alex. It’s just a window. It’s just some stupid wind. This means nothing.”

“I’m so pointless...” Alex murmured to himself. “This world isn’t for me.”

Jack’s chest swelled with sorrow at the boy’s words. Those words were so disgustingly wrong, especially coming from his lips. He couldn’t believe that he even entertained that train of thought, that he felt that way. Even though Jack knew Alex was battling depression and insecurities, he had never said any word of suicidal implications.

“Alex! Come get your mattress!” His mother’s voice called from downstairs.

Alex wiped the tears with his arm, snorting loudly. He was a slobbering mess of a boy with emotional problems showing clear in his tears.

“Alex, you need to tell your parents. I know what you’re thinking about.” Jack said. He stood solemnly over Alex, hands at his sides.

Alex stood up, tossing the scarf on the floor. Taking a deep breath, he turned on his heels and walked out of the door.

Jack was left alone in the room. His head hung and all he could feel was anger.

“Why can’t he just listen? He has the ability to, he just... won’t. What’s stopping him?” Jack’s teeth were gritted, muffling his words slightly.

But what he didn’t know was that the reason Alex couldn’t see or hear him was because of the chemical imbalance in his brain. And not just that, but his soul was dying. In order to see Jack, one of those two thing had to be fixed.

Jack had been given to him so he could heal the boy’s soul, though he had no idea he had to do this.

Jack Barakat would save Alex Gaskarth

Jack Barakat would give his own life for Alex Gaskarth.


	4. ten•e•bros•i•ty

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The lyrics Alex writes on his wall are by twenty one pilots.

 

> **/tenebrosity/**

**noun**

**the quality of being dark or shadowy.**

The Gaskarths have lived in their new home for two weeks. Everything is put in its place, where it would stay.

School, for the Gaskarth kids, has been a little bit of an issue. They’re teased for living across the road from the cursed house, which they had no idea about until that one girl screamed it at them from across the lunch hall.

Normally the siblings would be disbanded by their groups of friends, but now they must stick together. No-one else will talk to them except from each other.

They walk to school in a group, attend the classes they share together, eat lunch together, and walk home together.

Alex hated it. He’s always yearned to be an individual, and this situation was quite the opposite.

He wished to be free from the aggregation of his own flesh and blood - he wanted to be alone. Sure, he’d be picked on even more, but sometimes his thoughts are blocked by his brothers and sisters talking to him nonstop.

And when Alex’s thoughts are stopped, when they plug up his mind, he becomes agitated. He feels trapped in his own mind.

Today has been a particularly nasty case of thoughts being caught on the way out and stuffed back into a locked chest.

He briskly walked ahead of his siblings on the way home with his hand gripping his school bag straps tightly. Jack had been following him all day with a countenance of concern.

Inside, he ran up the stairs, taking two at a time, up into his room. He slammed the still squeaky door after him, throwing his bag across the room.

He collapsed onto his bed. The blankets felt comforting as they seemed to wrap around his small body like two arms.

“Hey Alex...” Jack breathed.

Nothing.

“Are you feeling okay?”

Then, a quiet sob.

Jack climbed up onto the bad as well, sitting at the foot of it with his hands folded gently in his lap.

“Are you angry?”

Alex’s hands slowly made their way up to his head, where they clawed at his short hair. He pulled out short brunette fibers, which stuck to his fingers.

“Sad, maybe?”

A low moon escaped Alex’s lips. It was tortured; Alex’s brain was attacking itself at this very moment. And all Jack could do was watch.

“Please, listen to me. Hear me. I’m tired of being a whisper in the back of your mind.” Jack was begging him now, pleading that the boy unlocked something inside him so he would be aware of his presence.

It was getting dark out already. The mid-fall sun had begun to hide behind the Baltimore hills. Its vibrant rays bathed the floor of Alex’s room in a cool coloured-pallet of crimsons and oranges. The darkness would soon take up his entire room completely and his consciousness would be swallowed in his own murky thoughts.

Jack’s eyes flitted up to the small window whose glass had been fragmented by the intense beams of the dying sun. He knew that Alex would be going to a bad place when the sun set.

“Do something to wake up your mind, Alex. Anything. Play some football, eat, _anything_.” Said Jack.

Alex didn’t feel like playing football or eating. All he wanted to do was hide behind his overpowering emotions until he fell away.

Minutes passed. Silence had fallen over the room like sheets of rain. If they sat in it any longer, they’d have to shake the feeling from themselves like raindrops.

Jack had given up by then. The sun was disappearing and no light was coming into the room. Total darkness would soon come.

Not knowing what to do, Jack stood up and walked over to the window. Peering through the bright light that seemed to be giving it all just before it faded away, he looked across the street.

The lawn...

Jack could see his parents lying on the grass. Not their ghosts, oh no, he wasn’t that lucky. He could see their mutilated corpses and their perfectly arranged organs. But then again, bad luck had always seemed to love Jack.

The skin that had been flayed from their frames was hanging off the mailbox at the end of the driveway. A rather large puddle of blood had collected underneath it.

Jack’s cheeks filled with air and he had to turn away. The sight would never leave his mind, nor would the pure, unbridled disgust. And the pain, the pain would forever stay rooted in his heart.

A rustling shook Jack from the memory. He peeked over his shoulder and found Alex leaving his bed, flicking on the lamp by his bed and making a beeline for the door. Jack had been so devoted to his own thoughts he completely blocked out Alex’s.

“Alex!” Jack called after him. He ran, sliding seamlessly through the door like the ghost he was and hopping down the steep stairs.

Alex was weaving in and out of the rooms, ignoring every member of his family. He was on a mission to alleviate his futile state of mind and nothing was going to stop him.

“Alex, what the hell are you doing?” Jack asked.

Alex had seen a can of black paint in the garage earlier, and that’s what he was going to take.

Jack came around the corner to catch up to Alex, screaming in fear when he saw he was about to trip over Sarah’s outstretched leg from the couch.

Except he forgot that he was a ghost for a second, and he passed through him without so much as a twitch from Sarah.

“Idiot,” Jack muttered to himself before leaving to chase Alex again.

He found him crouched over an old milk crate on the far side of the garage. He was rummaging around, making almost no noise.

Jack approached him quietly . He stood behind him, waiting to see what he was going to procure. It was still a mystery to him, because even though he was inside his mind and could tell what he was thinking half the time, his mind was clouded by those thoughts from earlier. Jack couldn’t get in.

“Alex, what are you doing?” His father asked from the garage doorway.

“I’m just getting some paint.” Alex mumbled in response. His hand touched the cool metal handle of the paint can and he lifted it from the amidst all the work gloves and house brushes in the milk crate.

“For what?”

“I’m just doing some art for school. Do we have any brushes beside these?” Alex stood up, now facing his father.

“Yeah, in your mother’s office. What’s this art of?” He was concerned now, because why would Alex be using house paint? Sure, it was all they had in the house right now, but surely his son could go out and buy some more appropriate paint.

“It’s just some original idea from our head.” Alex didn’t like lying to his father, but he just wanted to get everything he needed and go back up to his room.

“Oh. What’s it going to be?”

“I’m not sure yet.” Picking up the paint can, Alex brushes past his father. Jack followed, chuckling nervously under Peter’s, Alex’s father, suspicious gaze.

Alex briskly walked past the others again. He got stared but the TV regained their attention soon enough. In his mother’s office, he found the brushes in a desk drawer next to a rather surprising amount of paper clips.

Back in the attic, Alex sat in front of his wall. Tall, white, and blank, the wall stared back at him. It seemed to have a face of its own. Alex wanted to put a little makeup on it, but he didn’t know what yet.

He was never much of an artist, only with words. So what could he do? Just write some words in pitch black paint on the wall?

Actually...

He leaned forward, dipping the used brush into the paint. He pulled it out, watching as it oozed down in a thick string of black back into its original home.

“What are you gonna do?” Jack asked curiously. He sat next to him, legs crossed in the same way as Alex.

Alex lifted the brush. Reaching out to the wall, the clumped bristles drawing a straight line down. He added a curve that connected the top and the bottom of the line, forming a ‘D’.

Jack already knew what he was going to write - it was something Alex had written in his notebook before - but he watched in silence regardless.

An ‘E’ followed. Then an ‘A’. T. H.

\- _inspires me like a dog inspires a rabbit._

Death was forever chasing Alex, running after him with its haunting claws reaching out to grab him by the throat and drag him down. But sometimes, Alex would spur death on to chase him; he would come so close to welcoming it.

Jack remained wordless. Alex could only stare at the words in front of him that he had just painted.

In a way, he thought of this wall as his journal. In order to express his feelings without hurting himself and others, all he’d have to do is pick up a brush and paint what he was forced to feel.

The brush dropped from Alex’s hand. It fell into the empty gallon of paint, sinking slowly and disappearing from sight. He sat back, sighing.

“This is... I can’t...”

“You don’t have to talk, Alex. Just take a deep breath and think.” Jack cooed.

But Alex was done with thinking. He didn’t want to think anymore. He just wanted to... _be_.He wanted to exist without a mind and everything attached to it, like his overpowering emotions. Was it too much to be an unfeeling husk of a person?

“I don’t want to think... I want to kill my mind.” He said to himself.

Jack, not knowing what else to do, scooted over closer to Alex. He sat next to him with his hands on his kneecaps and his fingers drumming idly. All they could see were the words Alex had painted as they looked straight ahead together.

“I think it’s beautiful, Alex.”


End file.
